Being one of those people whom
suspense of any sort makes fidgety, he employed himself in looking at
the pictures and china, even going so far as to walk to a pair of very
heavy blue velvet curtains that apparently communicated with another
room, and peep through them at a much larger apartment of which the
furniture was done up in ghostly-looking bags.
Retreating from this melancholy sight, finally he took up a position
on the hearthrug and waited. Would she be angry with him for coming? he
wondered. Would it recall things she had rather forget? But perhaps she
had already forgotten them--it was so long ago. Would she be very much
changed? Perhaps he should not know her. Perhaps--but here he happened
to lift his eyes, and there, standing between the two blue velvet
curtains, was Madeline, now a woman in the full splendour of a
remarkable beauty, and showing as yet, at any rate in that dull November
twilight, no traces of her years. There she stood, her large dark eyes
fixed upon him with a look of wistful curiosity, her shapely lips just
parted to speak, and her bosom gently heaving, as though with trouble.
Poor Bottles! One look was enough. There was no chance of his attaining
the blessed haven of disillusionment.
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